Doctor Who and the Joy Hunter
by Shoebox Zookeeper
Summary: A story featuring the Third Doctor, Jo Grant, and UNIT. A mysterious and powerful alien entity is approaching 1970's Earth, where the Doctor is exiled. Why is it coming to our world? And what part will a little girl in a country village have to play?
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: Doctor Who is, to the best of my knowledge, copyright of the British Broadcasting Corporation, and I'm just having fun in the Whoniverse, which was and is the work of many wonderful and talented professional writers. This story has also been influenced by my recent readings of the novels of Linda Nagata._

**Doctor Who and the Joy Hunter**

**Chapter 1**

_Whatever it was, it existed. A thing that was. And it was alive._

_It could not see, smell, touch or taste, neither did it feel hunger, pain, or any such sense. Neither did it sleep. Its existence was such that it had no need of these things. Yet now it stirred – chemical activity that had long been sluggish and almost dormant increased as the gradient of its metabolic rate tilted upward – a tangent to a climbing curve – sparking communication between the tiny individual particles that the living thing was made of. For so long it had been inert in the silence and dark of the void through which it sped. Now it lived, it felt, it thought._

_Only simple thoughts. All it knew was that what had aroused it was a possible source of what it needed. Though it didn't hunger for food or molecular sustenance, it craved nourishment of another kind – something unique and rare in the Universe. And although in this vast emptiness there was no other living entity, and so no being to provide it with what it needed, it now knew that a chance existed for it to find that which it craved. It knew that it must now act._

_What had awoken it was the radiance of a great Hot Body. It felt that radiance in each of its millions of particles. Such was its sensitivity to that radiation that it could detect even an infinitesimal increase in it. The memories it held of the long-ago time before its great hibernation told of the Cold Bodies that orbited in circles around these great Hot ones, and on those Cold Bodies it could find what it desired._

_Eagerly, the living entity – the Thing That Was - _listened_. Every one of its particles was a miniscule sense organ that could map the most delicate and barely perceptible radiation emissions – the telltale signs of the Cold Bodies._

_There! A spiritual thrill swarmed through each one of its particles like a choir of a million voices singing one single note in joy and harmony. The creature for one moment sang to celebrate its existence at the prospect of satisfying its great need. It praised its thanks to its Maker who had programmed into it this capacity to find its way through the horrible wilderness of space._

_In its strange mind there was no doubt about what it must now do. It was happy._

* * *

It was spring, and the wind carried little particles of a very different kind through the air. Cynthia sat back against the trunk of the tree in her garden, and looked at the dandelion clock seeds she had just blown away as they floated on the spring breeze, tiny dark things suspended from the white filaments that spread up from them and caught the air. She laughed as she blew again "Two O'Clock!" she giggled, and in a white, fluffy explosion, more seeds were released and drifted away in dreamlike cloud. "Three O'Clock!" and still more were stripped away from the head. She kept going, until by "six o'clock" only one or two stubborn seeds still clung relentlessly, and all that remained of the dandelion clock was the green stem and the head.

She lay back dreamily, and bored. It was a "pupil free day" – which annoyed her mother, she knew – because they had to stay home to look after her. She looked wistfully at the line of woodland that extended just past the bottom fence of her back garden. She wasn't allowed to go there without an escort.

"Hello Cynthia!" came a voice. She looked up. Over the next-door fence a friendly brown face with beautiful dark eyes was looking at her. "Jim!" she squealed. She jumped up and ran to the fence, putting her hands on the flakey tops of the palings. Jim was one of two brothers a couple of years older than her. They were her neighbours, and she was very fond of them.

"You want to go out, don't you?" Jim asked.

"Yes!" she sighed. It's so boring at home!

"I know," Jim replied. "How about I ask my mum to ask your mum if me and Nichu can take you for a play in the wood?"

Cynthia clapped her hands, her face aglow. Maybe she would have a day of adventure after all, on this beautiful spring day!

* * *

Miles away, in a huge country residence, a man with a helmet of plentiful and slightly unkempt gray hair wearing a dark green smoking jacket with curious frilly sleeves protruding from the cuffs sat bent over a desk where he fiddled with an oddly shaped device. The object of his concentration was roughly spherical, and consisted of several spokes radiating in three dimensions from a central core – like a dandelion clock with only a few seeds left. The thing was slightly bigger than an orange.

Wearing a sky blue sleeveless blouse and a short white skirt, sitting on a work bench with her legs crossed and an impatient look in her pretty face was a blonde girl in her late teens. She fidgeted and drummed her slim delicate fingers on the bench she sat on.

The older man seemed oblivious to the mood of his young companion, and muttered to himself, "Now if I just reverse the polarity of the neutron flow…"

Unable to bear it any longer, the girl leapt to the floor and marched across the room to the window under which the man sat. She flung open the window and cried, "Oh Doctor _look_!"

The Doctor looked up indignantly. "Jo _please_!"

"But Doctor, it's Spring!" Listen to that!

Outside the walls of the seemingly innocuous country residence that formed the headquarters of the British contingent of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT), starlings twittered. The sun poured in and flooded the Doctor's workbench. Despite his irritation, the renegade Time Lord could not help but smile. But only for an instant. He turned his attention from the peculiar object in his hands to Jo's glowing yet frustrated face, meeting her bright eyes with a patient yet imploring look. "Jo, don't you see? I've seen a thousand Springs on a thousand different worlds. And now I'm trapped to seeing just _one_ Spring on _one_ world. Unless I can unlock the secrets trapped by _this_."

He held up the dandelion-clock device. Jo's surge of youthful exuberance was dampened by a deep sense of sadness for her friend. He had explained to her before what the device was. It was the _dematerialization circuit _from his crippled, Earthbound TARDIS. She cast a furtive glance at the tall, solemn police box that sat in the corner of the combination workshop/laboratory that UNIT suffered the Doctor to enjoy in return for his services as their Scientific Advisor. Getting his dimensionally transcendental spacetime vessel to live again was the Doctor's always present and ever-burning obsession.

Although he was surrounded by friends, on the planet he loved more than any in all the Universe, the Doctor was still a prisoner. His imprisonment had been imposed on him by the High Council of the Time Lords, as punishment for his disobedience of their law of non-intervention.

The Time Lords were watchers. Immensely powerful, with the capacity to wipe out entire planets if they so desired, they chose not to. Knowing how horrendous the consequences of the actions of a race who could command Time itself could be, they sat motionless in their Capitol, always watching the struggles of the Universe's myriad races – Humans, Cybermen, Daleks – always watching and never intervening – except in the most extreme circumstances. Yet there were a few – a _very few_ – Time Lords who disobeyed this directive. They were known as Renegades. And the most notorious of the Renegades, with the exception of the Master, was the Doctor.

One time – only once – had the Doctor been faced with a terrible choice. Either contact the Time Lords for help and risk their punishment, or abandon thousands of Humans so that they can never return to Earth. Being the Doctor, he had chosen the selfless option. He had tried to escape – but they had caught him. Caught him and put him on trial – a trial that could have ended in his execution. But the Council's sentence had been softened by the fact that the Doctor had always attempted to do good wherever he went in the universe. They had chosen not to execute him, but to exile him. They had forcibly regenerated him, causing him to take on his present, and third body, and had imprisoned him on 20th century Earth.

From the point of view of an outsider who did not know the Doctor as someone as close to him as Jo did, the sentence might have seemed to be a very lenient one. The Doctor was on the planet he loved the most, surrounded by members of a species whom, though they frequently irritated and frustrated him with their ignorance, arrogance and stupidity, he nevertheless held a tremendous affection for. And he had been allowed to keep his TARDIS. But perhaps that was the most ironic cruelty, as it gave him the constant feeling of freedom just out of reach. The TARDIS operated by dematerializing, then traveling through the Time Vortex to rematerialize anywhere else, anywhere in the Universe and at any time in its history. To make a journey, the TARDIS must dematerialize. The Time Lords had removed that function from it by changing something about the dematerialization circuit which the Doctor held in his hand. And they had altered something in the Doctor's memory, so that he could not recall how to repair it.

The Doctor was a wanderer. An adventurer. A force for hope and justice in a Universe filled with war, cruelty, tyranny and evil. Jo knew that it was simply not in his nature to remain motionless in one time and place. He could never feel truly free until he could find a way to reverse what the Time Lords had done to his TARDIS.

There was only one thing that could distract the Doctor from this obsession – and that was the assignments of UNIT that he felt worthy of his attention. Before his time of exile, the United Nations had become aware (through the Doctor) that Humans were not alone in a completely benign and harmless Universe. They became aware for a need of an elite force that could combat the potential threats to humanity. And soUNIT had been formed. Immediately after his arrival on Earth, the Doctor had been found by Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart and integrated into UNIT's organizational structure, despite him having no official credentials or identification. In the few years since then, his enormous knowledge and experience of the extraterrestrial or the paranormal had been crucial to many of UNIT's investigations.

But of late, there had been very little activity, it seemed, on the side of extraterrestrial invasions, hostile ancient reptilian races waking up to discover in annoyance that their planet had been taken over from them by humans, or dangerous super-scientific schemes by mentally unstable Earthbound researchers. Even the Doctor's arch nemesis, the Master, seemed to have been unusually quiet in his schemes of late. Jo had even approached the Brigadier a number of times, asking him if UNIT had found anything capable of capturing the Doctor's interest. Each time the Brigadier had patiently and kindly had to tell her that there was nothing out there. Maybe, Jo wondered, the Doctor was just getting a bit too clever for all the evil aliens and geniuses, and everyone else just needed a break?

Jo was completely at a loss as she looked at the Doctor. He sat with an imploring and helpless look on his face as he held the broken dematerialization circuit in his hand like a little boy with a broken toy that he desperately wanted to fix and yet didn't know how to.

Just at that moment the door opened, and in marched a familiar, tall, moustached figure.

"Doctor," the Brigadier barked in his usual sharp, no-nonsense manner, "I think we're in need of your particular talents. We discovered something only half an hour ago, and it looks like it could be both urgent and dangerous!"

As the Doctor leapt to his feet, both his and Jo's faces were on fire with delight. Even the Brigadier could not suppress a small smile.

_

* * *

_

The Thing That Was amassed and prepared its resources – spurred on in a wave of motivation which its discovery of the Cold Body had brought it. It moved in its actions with single-minded determination – precise, focused and serene.

_The Thing That Was surrounded a smaller, inert body – a core of rock and ice to which its living particles clung. They formed a shell around it, like algae that grew on a pebble cast into a great ocean. Except that in this case, the ocean was not water, but the vast empty space that separated the Hot Bodies. This stone was slowly rotating, so that the Thing That Was was being continuously disoriented in respect to the Hot Body and the Cold Body. But it didn't matter. The Thing That Was was deadly in its astuteness and precision. The millions of particles that it was built of and which formed its single brain communicated and interacted like the circuits of a great, living computer. It made computations based on the energy available to it – the time required to expend that energy. It knew that its initial attempts would have to be experimental – there were too many unknowns for it to be successful without learning. But the Thing That Was was a learning machine – not just a loving machine. It could adapt._

_Time for its first action that would shift the trajectory of the pebble it clung to – sending that pebble on a new course to intercept the Cold Body, along the surface of which, hopefully, the Living Bodies crawled. It must succeed, for only those Living Bodies could provide it with the thing it hungered for. _

_It sent its metabolism racing. A million tiny fires blazed on one side of the rotating body as exothermic reactions skyrocketed - at an exact moment calculated to place that side facing away from the Cold Body. The heat from the millions of reactions caused the surface ice of the asteroid to boil. In the airlessness of space, that ice was transformed directly to a gas that issued in a jet from the surface of the rock. The Thing That Was had built its own rocket-motor to send the asteroid hurtling towards the Cold Body._

_A clumsy attempt – just as all first attempts are, yet that tiny success was enough to set the Thing That Was gleefully working on a more refined action. It patiently waited for the great rock's rotation to bring it once more in the correct orientation to the Cold Body, and then once more it ignited its living motor._

_Another movement! This time more accurate, more correctly aligned in the direction of the Cold Body. Once again, it waited for the rock to rotate around…_

* * *

After a bit of gentle persuading, Cynthia's mother had kindly allowed Jim and Nichu to be Cynthia's escorts for the day. Cindy loved the family next door. They were the only Indians in the little village. Cynthia hated the way they always seemed so alone, and the way everyone from the local shopkeepers to the milkman would give them strange looks. They were the nicest people she knew, why did people treat them so unkindly?

Jim and Nichu's mother was a gentle, quiet, and understanding lady who had befriended Cynthia's mother. In her soft way she had shown her friend that it would be so much better for everyone if her two boys took Cynthia out to play in the woods for an hour or two. The two mothers could be free of the children, and go out and actually have a bit of fun! The clever South Asian lady had played on Cindy's mum's own compassion by pointing out to her that as a foreign woman alone in a sometimes hostile town, she really needed a bit of a break sometimes. Cythia's mother had relented, to the joy of the three children.

"But remember," she had told her friend's two sons, "don't let her out of your sight! You know she does all kinds of things that girls shouldn't do, and you have to _watch_ her!"

* * *

The three children grinned as they prepared to set off. It would be a fun day!

"These are the photos taken at the observatory," the Brigadier said, as he carefully laid each black-and-white plate on the desk in front of the Doctor as they sat in the tactical conference room of UNIT HQ. The pictures were of a barely perceptible ghostly grey-white form – a tiny white pinpoint surrounded by an indistinct wispy haze. "They mean nothing to me, but the astronomers assure us that although this looks like a comet, it's…"

"Steered," the Doctor interrupted in the usual cheerful way that showed he was intent on a problem.

"How the Devil did you…"

"See these numbers, Brigadier?" The Doctor tapped three sets of figures printed in a corner of the photograph. "Time and space coordinates. Well, not exactly. Celestial coordinates, right ascension and declination, together with the time of photography. So we know the direction the telescope was looking in when it saw this phenomenon. Now at this time of year, those specific coordinates lie approximately ninety degrees to the coordinates of the Sun. In other words, if our mysterious friend were a comet approaching the Sun, then we would be looking at it from the same viewpoint as that from which one observes an express train while standing on a platform, just as the train rushes past you – that is, from a perspective perpendicular in relation to its direction of motion. Follow me so far?"

The Brigadier nodded. The Doctor continued:

"Solar radiation causes a the outer layer of ice on a comet to boil away, and the resulting gasses, along with any dust, are "blown" away from the comet's nucleus in a "tail" by the solar wind. The comet's tail _has_ to point _away_ from the Sun. And as the comet would be at right angles to us and the Sun, we would see the full length of the comet's tail – stretched out in front of us, across our field of vision. But that isn't what we see here, is it?"

The Doctor's long, thin finger traced the ghostly outline of the figure in the picture. "This ghostly halo around the object is what makes it look like a comet seen head-on, rather than from the side. You'll see it doesn't appear to have a tail at all, but rather a fuzzy halo around a central nucleus. If it were indeed a comet we were looking at, then for it to look like this would mean we were looking at it head-on, rather than from the side, as the coordinates indicate – and the halo would in fact be the tail – just viewed from a different perspective.

"So, if we are to assume that this object is really a comet, then these photographic plates present us with contradictory facts. We're given a picture of a comet with it\s tail facing away from us, and we know that a comet's tail must always face away from the Sun. But because its positon in the sky is perpendicular to the Sun, it's impossible for its tail to point both away from us and away from the Sun at the same time. So we can only conclude one thing. This isn't a comet tail at all - it's something else. By the way, how far away do the astronomers reckon our mystery object to be?"

"Five hundred thousand kilometers."

"Very close then, on the scale of the solar system! Not much further than the Moon! And how close?"

"They say it's fifty metres in diameter."

"Much smaller than a normal comet!" Another observation, although this is an academic one since we've already proven the object is not a comet – but if it were a comet, I'm sure that one so small would not be able to produce a sufficient quantity of reflective vapour to make it this visible, even in the most powerful telescope – even at such close range. This 'tail' is clearly an emission much more voluminous and powerful than a simple comet tail!"

Impatiently, the Brigadier heaped several more photographs in front of the Doctor. "The astronomers seem to think these are of significance," he said gruffly.

"By Jingo!" the Doctor whispered as he snatched up this new collection. "Look at that Jo!"

Jo looked. "Hey! The tail to the comet-thing or whatever it is keeps disappearing and re-appearing!"

"Exactly Jo! We know this is most _definitely_ not a simple comet! Look at this photo. There's what we're erroneously calling the tail. Now in the second one, instead of the ghostly shape, we see a much more clearly defined white disk, with no tail at all. Very very faint. This tiny, fifty-metre diameter object is hardly discernable now on account of the fact that there is no vapour tail any more to reflect sunlight. Even though from it's position we know it has to be the same object! But the third photo – see – it could almost be a facsimile of the first photo – that spectral tail's back again!"

"It's almost as if something's switching the tail on and off!" said Jo.

"Jo that's _exactly_ what's happening!"

The Brigadier's usual impatience in the fact of scientific investigation finally got the better of him. "This is all very well Doctor, but what I want to know is; is this thing _dangerous_? Is it a threat? Is it the kind of thing that UNIT is supposed to protect humanity from?"

The Doctor smiled patiently. "Brigadier, I just don't know. How can I know? All I know is that some intelligence is at work here!"

"Intelligence?" The Brigadier's already considerable frown deepened.

"Yes Brigadier! Don't you understand what these photographs show? Each frame is taken at an interval of 20 minutes, according to the clock times shown on them."

The Brigadier said nothing. Neither did Jo – both apparently saw no significance in this observation, so the Doctor continued. "This is only a hypothesis – there is no direct evidence to prove it – but let us suppose for an instance that it's not an external influence that's producing what we are calling a comet tail. We've already demonstrated that it cannot be the known mechanism by which comet tails are formed. Suppose there is some mechanism, either natural or artificial, somehow installed on that ball of rock and ice that produces heat to vapourise the ice. Matter escapes from the body in a jet of vapour – gas and dust - every time that mechanism is activated. _Think_ Brigadier! _Think_ Jo! What happens when you make a jet of gas or vapour issue from something? What happens when you blow up a balloon and let go of the end without tying it?"

Jo's eyes shone in sudden realization. "You mean…"

"Yes Jo! What we are seeing is a _propulsion system_! Now, consider another thing, and the explanation for the intermittent, on-and-off behaviour we see in this series of photos will become clear. We know that objects in space are notoriously difficult to keep oriented – inertia is a stubborn thing and things will rotate about their centre of gravity. Suppose you had a rocket-propulsion unit installed on a rotating object, and you wanted to use that rocket motor to propel your object in a particular, fixed direction. What would you do?"

Jo exclaimed, "Wait until…"

"Yes Jo!" the Doctor continued for her. "Wait until your motor was just correctly oriented – fire the motor, quickly switch it off again – then wait the required time for one complete rotation of the object to bring your motor to the correct orientation once more. Then fire again…"

"Doctor!" The Brigadier's voice was clearly raised in thorough exasperation. "What are you telling us? That this comet has a rocket stuck in it?"

"Not a rocket as we know it, Brigadier. But some device that serves the same purpose. An _intelligent entity_, Brigadier, whether it's human or non-human, organic or inorganic, corporeal or non-corporeal, is timing the activation of a propulsion system on this comet – timing it so that upon every activation that propulsion system is directed _away_ from Earth. Meaning…"

"Meaning it's a missle aimed right at Earth!" Jo cried.

No sooner had she said the words than the Brigadier had seized a radio microphone. "Calling all Greyhounds, this is Greyhound Leader. Standby alert!" He turned to a woman at another console. "Get me Geneva – maximum priority!"

* * *

_The Thing that was was tiring._

_It had been an arduous, grueling act of labour to push this heavy hunk of rock so far. Each burst of propulsion consumed more of its resources. The entity's millions of particle components tunneled deep into the rock – mining whatever elements there were that it could metabolize. The asteroid's mass was shrinking, as its useful elements were consumed and the waste components excreted along with the dust and gas into the propulsion stream. The projectile was slowly becoming lighter, and thus easier to shift._

_And yet it taxed the Thing That Was almost beyond endurance. After so long in hibernation in the great emptiness, this new activity was the near-ultimate test of its determination. The Cold Body was its target – there, hopefully, it would find the Living Bodies that it so desired – so needed. The rock's velocity increased with every propulsion burst, and yet the Cold Body seemed ever so far away. It was a slow, slow, agonizing crawl. The periods of rotation during which the Thing That Was waited for its living engine to be re-oriented were scarcely enough time to re-compose itself – to take a figurative gasp of breath before pushing again. Millions of tiny voices cried their exhaustion. Many perished – burnt out by their fiercely bright metabolisms, and cast away to become a part of the propulsion stream, and thus performing a final act to drive their brothers and sisters along further – tiny martyrs to the greater, wonderous cuase. It was hard labour – but a labour at the end of which, the entity prayed, a wonderful thing would be found, like the birth of a living thing._

_And so it pushed on, ever patient, ever relentless, towards the distant paradise it hungered for. That was what kept it going – the thought that sent joy singing through all of its particles in a symphony of wonder._


	2. Chapter 2

_Disclaimer: Doctor Who is, to the best of my knowledge, copyright of the British Broadcasting Corporation, and I'm just having fun in the Whoniverse, which was and is the work of many wonderful and talented professional writers. This story has also been influenced by my recent readings of the novels of Linda Nagata._

**Doctor Who and the Joy Hunter**

**Chapter 2**

"Doctor, it can't simply point its rocket at Earth in order to get here, can it?" Jo said.

She and the Doctor were sitting together on a workbench, sharing a small plate of sandwiches in a quiet corner of the tactical room, away from all the main hustle and bustle that had suddenly erupted around them upon the Doctor's revelation of the nature of the frightening object that had been discovered in space. They could hear the Brigadier barking orders left right and centre, while at the same time sporadically engaging in radio communications with the UNIT world headquarters in Geneva, as well as with the British Ministry of Defense. Uniformed personnel were rushing here and there – the presence of the Doctor and Jo apparently forgotten. A dozen CRT consoles showed images ranging from telescope pictures to blank radar screens. Operators were positioned at these screens, ready for when the sweeping, glowing ray might start to highlight the blip of the deadly object.

"Well it can," the Doctor replied. "But because the object is already on a curved trajectory, under the gravitational influences of both the Sun and the Earth, rather than its exertions making it move in a straight line to Earth, they will of course just alter the trajectory – to one that becomes, with each propulsion burst, more like one that will cause the object to intersect the path of Earth. That's why it has to _repeatedly_ ignite is propulsion system, whatever it may be. If its motor had the strength of the Saturn V moon rocket then it would only need _one_ burst of thrust to get it to Earth – just one action to change its orbit sufficiently – and maybe a few additional ones to slow it down sufficiently to allow it to be captured by Earth's gravity. But because the nature of its curious spaceship is such that it can only release its stored energy _gradually_, it has to constantly fight against the gravity of the Sun, which threatens to pull it away from Earth, on its original course."

"Oh," Jo said.

The activity in the room seemed to have settled a bit. "Everything's been done sir," Captain Yates reported. "All units are alert and on standby. Geneva has notified all UNIT contingencies worldwide – Australia, Iran, Japan, the U.S., you name it. We're as ready as we can be. All we can do now is wait."

The Brigadier ignored him and continued to march around the room.

"Brigadier," a woman said, "there's a communication from the American contingent. It concerns the Apollo moon mission. It seems that our visitor passed only a few hundred metres from their ship, and the astronauts videotaped it! NASA promptly forwarded the footage to UNIT, and our U.S. counterpart has already transmitted it to us."

"Well don't just stand there, let's see it!" the Brigadier barked.

One of the TV screens on the wall came to life. The Doctor and Jo leapt up from their perch on the bench and joined the little crowd around the little monitor.

The screen awoke in a burst of static. The grainy picture which appeared was one that shook, twisted, and was continually distorted. Yet something could be made out in it. A dark, potato shape against the darker background of space.

"Why is it so dark?" Jo asked.

"The spacecraft must have passed the side of the object where no sunlight fell," the Doctor muttered absent-mindedly. His eyes were riveted to the screen. This was the first close-up image of the object.. Suddenly, one side of the dark, amorphous shape burned like red embers, then there was a blaze of light, followed by static, then nothing.

"Is that all there is?" the Brigadier demanded. There had been less than half a minute of video time.

"That's all there is, sir," replied Sergeant Benton. "We were lucky to get even that. The astronauts had trouble getting a fix on it – it was far away – they had to use a telephoto lens on their television camera, which was unsteady and cumbersome. By the time they were able to focus on the object, they only had that much time before they ran out of tape."

"Why didn't they re-use the tape?" Jo asked.

"By they time they rewound it, the object had gone! For the love of Mike, we're ruddy lucky they had a _colour_ camera! And that we had a colour monitor!"

"Sergeant Benton – Miss Grant – enough!" the Brigadier roared. "We are not interested in American excuses in this moment! What we want to know is…"

But even Lethbridge-Stewart fell silent when the Doctor raised his hand, in an unspoken communication of having seen something important. "Sergeant Benton, can you rewind the tape for us? Thank you. Now play it back frame by frame if you will, there's a good chap!"

Grainy image after grainy image appeared on the screen until the blaze of light. At this point the Doctor cried: "Stop! Good. See? That's a propulsion burst. By Jove! Our astronaut friends must have been exceedingly lucky – their vessel must have almost been in direct line of the jet! No wonder they stopped taping there – they had more important things to worry about! What a risk they took to get us these pictures! Sergeant Benton, go back _one_ frame if you will, old chap. One more. And another. Yes. Yes. Forward again. Look at that!"

The Doctor tapped the glass screen with his finger to show the dull red spiderweb of lines that had suddenly appeared on the frozen image of the mysterious object. On his instigation, Benton advanced to the following frame, which now showed the deep red lines brightening to a warm, brilliant gold. This current still picture seemed twice as intricate as the previous one.

"Look at that!" the Doctor said in a hushed voice.

"I don't get it," Jo said, using her typical choice of slightly out of date American slang. "Isn't that just glowing because it's hot?"

"Yes Jo. Incandescence. But look! Such detail!" The frozen picture showed a beautiful pattern of many interlaced spiderwebs – thousands of threads of light weaving together to form a great, complex form. The patterns seemed almost organic, curling, weaving back on each other, extending out in ever more complex designs in a way that seemed both alien and alive. As Jo looked at it, she felt she could be looking at constellations, or cell structures, tree branches or ocean waves. And at the same time they could be lace designs, Celtic metalwork, Mayan carvings or Aboriginal paintings. What she saw made her think of all these things, and yet it was at the same time something completely different – unique in itself. And it was lovely to look at.

"Fractal manifestation," the Doctor muttered. "Amazing!"

"Doctor what _is_ it?"

"It's a living thing, Jo, I'm sure of it! And the most remarkable thing is – what we're looking at appears to be both its brain, and also its rocket engine! It's millions of particles, all linked to form one mind – like the cells of our brains. Such intricacy has to be for something more complex than just pushing a rock. And yet they generate heat, which makes the surface ice of the asteroid boil, and so they _have_ to be its engine as well. Look at the next frame. The whiteout is where the energy released by them got too much for our brave friends' camera. Enough to boil away the ice surrounding the asteroid and produce the propulsion jet. Think of that Jo! Imagine if the cells that made your brain and the cells that formed the muscles in your legs you use to walk with were the same thing! A thinking organ and a motor organ combined!"

"Doctor, have you encountered anything like this before?" the Brigadier asked.

"Never. The Time Lords may know of such things, but so much of their knowledge is closed to me now." There was a note of bitterness in the Doctor's voice. "We can only learn as we go."

"Sir!" Captain Yates cried. "We've got notice from the MOD. They have missiles ready to shoot the thing down if necessary."

"No, they can't do that!" the Doctor cried.

"Doctor," the Brigadier said in a tired, exasperated voice, "I thought you told us this thing was a missile aimed at earth!"

"Actually it was me who said that," Jo said in a small voice. Both the Doctor and the Brigadier ignored her.

"I knew it was the product of some intelligence, Brigadier," the Doctor said. "But I didn't know the intelligent creature was actually _living on it_! If you shoot that rock, Brigadier, you'll be killing a living creature as intelligent as you or I!"

"Doctor, that thing is clearly hostile! It's aimed for us!"

"That doesn't mean it means any harm, man! The asteroid appears to merely be its vehicle. What we're seeing is a spaceship – albeit a very unusual one. Its intent obviously can't be to blow us up or anything like that, or it would blow _itself_ up, because it would be sitting on top of its own bomb!"

"Could it be a kind of suicide bomber?" Captain Yates suddenly ventured. "A _kamikaze_ alien? Just look at its brain – if that's what it is, its brain." He tapped the beautiful fractal patterns of the screen. "Nothing like our brains at all! How can we know if it thinks in the same way we do, or what its consciousness or its morality, its desires or motivations are like?"

"Well done Captain Yates! A highly rational consideration," the Doctor said gravely. "And yet throughout the Universe, the tendency for living things to have a self-preservation directive or desire is very strong. There are, of course, exceptions to the general rule, like the _kamikaze_ bombers you mentioned. But they are relatively uncommon, and so we are faced with the likelihood that this thing is non-aggressive."

"We still don't know it might not get up to some mischief after it's arrived here!" the Brigadier protested.

"True," the Doctor mused. "But we equally don't know that it might not. Brigadier, does your little country here automatically shoot a foreigner who happens to arrive on your shore?"

The Brigadier seemed to hesitate a minute. Then Sergeant Benton cried: "Sir! Mr. Chinn is on the line at the Ministry. He's informed us that he's just given clearance for the mysterious object to be shot down."

"WHAT?" the Doctor shouted.

"That wretched buffoon of a man!" the Brigadier growled. His dislike of Horatio Chinn was almost as strong as the Doctor's.. White moustached in his black suit and bowler hat, government official Chinn was the perfect image of British respectability – and British obstinacy. He disliked anything that was not English, or deviated in the slightest way from English normalcy or conformity. Chinn's sympathy for anything from outside the Earth – and hence outside Britain – was virtually nonexistent, and he would ignore all other considerations.

"Brigadier we can't allow him to do this!" the Doctor pleaded – a despairing look on his face.

"I'm afraid it's out of our hands, Doctor," the Brigadier said with a look on his face that showed a range of emotions – anger, contempt – and resignation. "We are in British territory. The jurisdiction of the MOD overrules that of UNIT in matters it may consider a threat to national security."

"Wait a minute!" Jo cried. "They can only consider it to be a threat to British national security if it looks to be aimed for Britain! But it could land anywhere in the world, couldn't it?"

The Brigadier sighed. "Whether this thing is friendly or hostile, for its own safety it had better stay away from Britain, as long as Mr. Chinn has his confounded finger on the button!"

* * *

_The Thing that Was felt excitement. Its arduous, exhausting journey was now drawing to a close – at last. Soon it would be able to rest. Soon, it would have what it yearned for. Soon._

_And most wonderful of all, it knew that the Cold Body that now stretched beneath it did have Living Bodies on it. For it had had a wonderful surprise. In preparation, it had switched from its radiation-sense which had first alerted it to the existence of the Hot Body and the Cold Body, and had awoken its Other Sense, which would bring to its awareness the nearby existence of Living Bodies. And it had already encountered Living Bodies! Between propulsion bursts its Other Sense had detected them – not on the Cold Body itself, but passing through the Void! They had passed so close – entombed in a bizarre arrangement of materials and mechanisms that painted a confused, tangled picture in its many-particled brain. The Thing That Was did not understand it. But it had felt a thrill at the knowledge of their existence. That knowledge had spurred its hunger to new levels, and it had taken to its efforts to reach the surface of the Cold Body with renewed vigour – fiercely dragging every calorie of energy it possessed into the act of powering its strange craft on. It was on a high like that of the adrenaline rush an animal that is fighting or fleeing experiences._

_But The Cold Body was so close now that it had long stopped pushing towards it with its living rocket engine. It was safely held fast now within the gravitational well of the Cold Body – held as if in the warm arms of a strong, protective mother. No longer did it have to fear the stronger, yet more distant pull of the mighty and tyrannical Hot Body that it had had to constantly fight against with its propulsion bursts for so long. Had it known laughter, it would have laughed long and hard at the Hot Body, which had threatened to tear it away from its dream that it knew now with a certainty would be realised on the Cold Body. Now, its energies must be directed to softening its fall on the Cold Body._

_The Cold Body stretched beneath it. It was speeding in a near-circle around it, high above the atmosphere still, yet able to make out detail on the surface. It changed the direction of its propulsion bursts, now directing them ahead of it, to slow its velocity, rather than increase it. That would turn its orbit into a spiral as the Cold Body's gravity pulled it down._

_So close! Already its radiation senses were picking up many strange things. But its Other Sense…_

_There! It could feel the Living Bodies below! As it flew above them like an angel in the sky, it could feel them crawling in scattered pockets. Some were almost still – others sped at considerable speed over the ground or through the atmosphere. And now…_

_The Thing That Was was suddenly dumbstruck. Below it a new section of land came within the reach of its Other Sense. And that land contained…_

_It was like entering another universe. Its Other Sense was suddenly flooded – flooded so that it was like a great, blinding white light that seared its brain. SO many Living Bodies were below such as it had never known, had never imagined could exist. Millions of Living Bodies stretched below like a great ocean in all directions…_

* * *

"Sir!" Captain Yates called to the Brigadier. "The object has been seen over Los Angeles! The UNIT contingent there have it on radar! They even have naked-eye visual contact! Look! Ground-based photography."

On one of the TV screens a still photo of an office building with a car park showed. The sky showed dark – it was still the early hours before dawn on the West Coast of the U.S. In the sky above could be seen a brilliant white pinpoint.

"Chart its position!" the Brigadier snapped. "I want its movements tracked _constantly_!"

_

* * *

_

The Thing That Was almost went insane! Below it, in huge hordes were Living Bodies – millions more than it had ever dreamed could exist. Some were motionless – bundled together and dormant within structures. Others traveled in twisting lines at great speed within moving structures like blood cells in two-dimensional arteries that wrapped around all the inequalities of this section of the Cold Body's surface. A vast, organic pattern which reminded the Thing That Was of its own beautiful and complex structure. Like itself, the great entity below was built of millions of particles – except that those particles were the Living Bodies. They worked together, like a great brain.

_And, more importantly, the Thing That Was could sense The Light._

_The Light was the thing it craved for, the thing it hungered for. The Light could only be found in the Living Bodies, which was why the Thing That Was needed them. And not all Living Bodies carried The Light. Only some. Yet there were so many Living Bodies below that it was so easy to feel those who carried The Light. They were everywhere – within the structures, traveling on the artery threads – and yet in some places the Light was stronger. In some structures it was stronger than in others. In some groups of structures it was almost entirely absent, while in others it was plentiful.. Why?_

_The Thing That Was asked itself this question. Why? Why was The Light in some places and not in others? It was a question of considerable importance to its own continued existence, for it could not live without The Light. And if it knew how to predict where it could find The Light, then its mission to survive would be so much easier! And yet it could not answer this question. For the truth was, it did not know what the Light was. It did not really know what the Living Bodies were, except that they were vehicles for The Light. When its search was over, and a Living Body that carried the Light was properly within its reach, maybe it would learn these secrets. But by that time it would not matter any more, for it would have found what it needed. The Living Bodies were simply tools it had a use for – a source of The Light that it needed to survive._

_Even as these thoughts passed through its many-particled brain, it felt its hunger driven to such a point that it was almost sent insane. The Light was there – right below it, imprisoned in the Living Bodies! All of its particles screamed out their awareness of its presence. But it could not access that Light! Its vehicle, the great, blessed and yet accursed rock which had carried it through the Void, was moving too fast! The current velocity would sweep the Thing That Was right past this glorious treasure trove, and there was no time for it to make the necessary preparations for descent into the midst of the Living Bodies. The Thing That Was was still exhausted from its journey, It was too soon! Too soon! The frustration it felt was maddening, unbelievable! Yet, in its calm, rational mind, it knew that there was no option but to let this glorious find sweep past below it. It didn't matter. This Cold Body was rich in Living Bodies, it knew that now. It would find more. And it would find The Light again._

* * *

The Doctor and Jo watched as a group of UNIT officers plotted the path of the object across a table-sized map of the world. "They lost track of it for a while after it passed over LA," Benton explained patiently. "But it was then reported just south of Honolulu by an American submarine. It appeared on their radar. Later it was picked up again, by an Australian submarine, a few hundred kilometers from the Marshall Islands. Then again by our own tracking station in the Phillipines."

"Its orbit doesn't seem to be fixed," the Doctor said. "See how there are gradual deviations from the circle it would follow around your planet if it were solely under the influence of gravity? It's steering its course!"

"Steering? How?" the Brigadier demanded.

"Using the same principle by which it steered its course to intercept that of Earth in the first place. Because it's spinning in its flight, it can wait for the opportune moments to fire its living engine in the correct direction to alter its path."

"Why would it do that?" Jo asked.

"Why would you steer anything? To get somewhere you wanted to go! Or…" The Doctor rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "…or – to explore." He reached behind his head and rubbed the back of his neck, allowing his thoughts to progress at a relaxed, leisurely pace. "It's searching!" he said suddenly.

"Searching for what, Doctor?" the Brigadier snapped.

The Doctor shook his head slightly. "I don't know, Brigadier."

* * *

"Let's play Hide and Seek!" Cynthia squealed as she and the two brothers scampered through the woodland. The whole land was alive with spring. The sun painted a bright dappled pattern on the ground between the leaves, and butterflies flitted in the undergrowth. The air was heavy with birdsong, and now and then an animal could be seen – a rabbit or a hare.

Behind her, Jim and Nichu panted as they strove to keep up with the girl who fled like a forest nymph ahead of them. "What did her mum tell us, Jim?" Nichu gasped. "We were supposed to keep her in sight? How can we do that if we play Hide and Seek?"

Cynthia stopped dead ahead of them, jumped up on a rock and span round, giggling. "Please let's play Hide and Seek! _PLEASE_!!"

"Your mum said we had to watch you! Nichu objected. "How can we do that if we're playing Hide and Seek?"

"Oh _please_!" Cynthia suddenly had a very hurt look on her face. The two brothers looked at each other, at a loss.

Jim said, "Tell you what Nich – you do the seeking, and me and Cin will do the hiding. That means she'll only have to hide from you. She won't have to hide from me."

Nichu was worried. He wasn't sure that that this idea would really work, but he didn't see much alternative. "Alright then," he muttered.

"Count to thirty!"

"No, I'm going to count to ten!" Nichu was worried that thirty would give Cynthia enough time to make her unfindable.

"Twenty five then!" Cynthia demanded.

"Twenty," Nichu offered.

"Alright! Start counting now! And no peeping!"

Nichu closed his eyes and started to count. After her footsteps had gone, he started to increase his counting speed.

Cynthia ran through the wood. Where could she hide? An exciting thought occurred to her. Mummy had always told her she must never climb trees. She looked up at a beautiful big tree. Its branches reached up into the sunlight, as if inviting her to join them, like arms spread wide for a big hug.

She seized the big friendly trunk of the tree, searching for foot-and-handholds. She found them easily. This was the kind of thing she was good at – she was better at climbing than either of the two boys, and before long she was nestled in a little spot between two boughs. This was great – they would never find her here!

_

* * *

_

Immediately after its encounter with the wondrous, vast swarm of Living Bodies at the beginning of its exploration of this wonderful Cold Body, the Thing That Was had had to face the depressing crossing of an enormous expanse of water. That expanse of water had been so vast that it had felt close to despair. It was a great gulf with no Living Bodies on it that stretched across a considerable fraction of the Cold Body's surface, and it had been frightened that this might in fact go completely around the Cold Body. Frantically it had steered itself in one direction, then another, yet it had always met more water. But now, to its great relief, it sensed land below it again.

_The Thing That Was felt despair at what it felt. It sensed a ravaged land below, where many Living Things struggled to live without the Light. The Thing That Was didn't understand it. It sensed a recent conflict – something meaningless that had stolen the Light from the Living Bodies._

* * *

Benton stuck a new pin in the world map. "This here is the first sighting of it since the very brief sighting in the Phillipines. It's currently orbiting over Vietnam."

"Mmm." The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck again. "If its orbit continues to be as unpredictable as it has been so far, the exact location of our next detection of it can't be known. But its general direction of movement should be across the Asian continent."

"Sir!" Benton cried, "we have sightings in Burma and in Bangladesh."

_

* * *

_

Despair was slowly starting to grip the Thing That Was. It could feel its orbit decaying, and its final energy reserves being sapped by its desperate efforts to steer its vehicle. It knew that it would not have enough power to complete another circuit of this Cold Body. It had to find a cluster of Living Bodies that carried The Light. For a while, since its encounter with that horrible region inhabited by poor Living Bodies devoid of the Light, it had been aware of the Light in some of the regions below. But it still had not been ready to descend. And it was past those now. The land below it was once again full of Living Bodies devoid of the Light. The uncertainty of the future was maddening. When the time came for it to finally come down to the surface of the Cold Body it would be immobile and helpless. Unless it came down in a place inhabited by Living Bodies who carried The Light, it was doomed. It knew that there were Living Bodies who did possess the Light in this world – it sensed them periodically – but their location was unpredictable. It did not understand why The Light was in some regions of this Cold Body and not in others. It could recognize no pattern in the presence or absence of The Light – and it had only limited control over where it would eventually come to rest. It had to be constantly alert. It had to be aware of its diminishing resources, and, when the window of opportunity arose when it would be able to descend and yet not quite forced to descend, it would have to choose its location quickly and act.

* * *

"India … Pakistan … Afghanistan … Iran," Sergeant Benton calmly reported. "Last sighting, by radar, over Shiraz."

"I knew a chap from Shiraz once," the Doctor mused dreamily. "Fellow by the name of Hafiz. Wrote beautiful poetry!"

"_Doctor,"_ the Brigadier reprimanded in a slow voice beneath the surface of which frustration bubbled.

"It's heading this way," the Doctor said coolly. "Towards Europe, and England."

The Brigadier's hand made a fist. Jo looked at it and wondered what angry thought had crossed his mind to cause that gesture. Was it the unknown nature of the alien visitor? Or was it Horatio Chinn's missiles?

_

* * *

_

Now, for the first time in what seemed an age, The Thing That Was started to feel relief. It had steered away from the deadly coastline. It would find no Living Bodies out in the ocean. And now the new area that sped beneath it was becoming more and more full of Living Bodies. And it could sense that more and more of them carried The Light! Excitement swept through its particles. Yet it knew it must remain alert. With its characteristic, near-infinite patience, it calculated the time when it would be compelled to make its descent. And it made preparations. It knew that once it entered the thicker atmosphere of the planet, the friction would strip the particles of its being away from the surface of the rock. That must not be allowed to happen, so drawing on its last reserves of energy, its millions of particles mined the last remaining useful minerals in the shrinking asteroid and working in unison as one great, complex machine, they started to re-shape the materials. Their metabolisms forged new molecular bonds between the elements that had been mined, and a new, hard and tough substance was formed. A protective structure took shape – a shelter for the Thing That Was that could survive the rigorous entry into the atmosphere. It was a spherical structure and it emerged like a bubble on the surface of the asteroid. Once the final preparations had been made, the Thing That Was would enter that protective bubble and wait. But not yet. Not yet…

* * *

A constant flow of reports was now coming into UNIT as the mysterious object passed ever lower and lower over more and more populated land. Turkey, Bulgaria, Italy…

"Sir!" Benton cried. "It's crossed the Alps! It's over Switzerland right now. Look! This photo was taken by our world HQ in Geneva themselves!"

A photograph appeared on a monitor that revealed a stunning landscape of white peaks. High above them in the brilliant blue sky a single white point blazed. Jo knew that for it to appear so bright in full daylight it must indeed be close to the surface of the Earth. Looking at it, she could almost feel it bearing down on them like a mysterious white angel from space – the bringer of either destruction or happiness, none could tell.

Every console was alive now with dozens of reports as the object soared over the densely populated and heavily industrialized centres of France and Belgium.

"It's approaching the Channel sir!" Benton exclaimed. "There! We've got it!"

Suddenly, for the first time, the local radar screens started to beep as their sweeping lines revealed the bright blip of the approaching object.

_

* * *

_

The Thing That Was basked in wonder.. The land below fascinated it. It seemed like every tiny part of it was swarming with Living Bodies. And many of those carried The Light. Lost in wonderment, it felt the thrill of the Light flow through its particles. Although it was still not quite within its reach, the knowledge of the Light's existence filled it with satisfaction. It almost forgot how critical these last moments of its journey were as it surveyed the great landscape of Living Bodies, moving in their two-dimensional arteries, hugging the feet of the mountains, and lining the coast…

…_The coast!! The relaxed happiness turned to fear as the Thing That Was suddenly realized that it was nearing the end of the continent. It had no power left to steer now, and its course was leading it inexorably to a new ocean! Terrified, it searched desperately with its Other Sense to see if there existed any more Living Bodies in the direction it was headed. At the same time the awareness dawned on it that it was now ready to descend. It was within its physical capacity. But would there by any more Living Bodies after this great feast of them which it seemed about to pass?_

_And then, with an indescribable relief, it sensed it. There was more land still before the ocean – a cluster of islands off the main continent. And there was no doubt at all in its mind. Whether the Living Bodies there carried the Light or not, it had to descend there. For it would find no Living Bodies and no Light in the ocean. It was time._

_The Thing That Was ignited its living propulsion engine one last time, consuming its very last calorie of energy in the act of aiming its vehicle for the islands and setting it to make those islands its final resting place._

* * *

The Brigadier bent over a radar screen. "Two hundred kilometers sir," Benton calmly announced.

"Sir!" someone cried, "Mr. Chinn has fired the missles!"

Jo could almost feel the Doctor's fury. _"Wretched murderer!"_ he growled.

_

* * *

_

The Thing That was began to retreat into the shell it had constructed, ready to await its impact onto the surface of the Cold Body. But in the very last instant it was arrested by a new development unlike any it has so far experienced..

_Three Hot Bodies were approaching it at great speed from different directions! Panic seized the Thing That Was. It did not understand where these fearsome things had come from, but it knew that its little protective bubble would be completely destroyed if the projectiles impacted the rock which carried it._

_In sheer desperation, with the burst of energy that living things experience when faced with the prospect of sudden death, or the death of a loved one, the Thing That Was did what it would have thought impossible in its exhausted state. It started its engine one last time, and pushed – pushed – pushed. It did not wait for the rock to be oriented – it just randomly pushed for survival! With its very last ounce of strength, it pushed! Then it crawled into its bubble and waited. And rested. It had done all it physically and emotionally could. Whether it lived or died – whether it would be killed by these high speed Hot Bodies or was burned up in the atmosphere, or died of starvation in a land without Living Bodies and without The Light, it did not know. All it knew now was that it must rest. Its mind was purely logical. It knew that all it could do now was rest and wait, and so it did._

* * *

The Doctor and Jo bent over a radar screen and watched the three blips that were the missiles slowly converge on the larger blip that was the mystery object. One sweep of the glowing ray showed four blips. The next showed one big white one – the missiles and the alien object too close together now to be distinguished. The girl and the Time Lord held their breath. The next sweep of the ray again showed four blips.

The Doctor gave a rare whoop of joy. Jo was caught up in his delight and hugged him, despite the Brigadier's disapproving glare. "It survived!" the Doctor gasped. "The clever thing! It sensed Chinn's missiles just in the nick of time, and deviated its course just enough to avoid them!"

"You may think that's all well and good, Doctor, but it's still our responsibility to deal with this thing! As you have just pointed out, it's still with us!" the Brigadier growled.

_

* * *

_

The Thing That Was sensed the changes outside its protective sphere. The rock it was embedded in burned white hot as the atmosphere of the Cold Body rushed against it, and it melted. The great natural thing that had been its home and which had served it so well ebbed away – it vapourised and the sphere that formed the new and temporary home of the Thing That Was was freed. Like a cosmic egg freed from its womb of stone the little capsule that contained the Thing That Was now plummeting to earth in a great fireball, leaving a tail of flame in its wake. Made of more heat-resistant material, it would survive the atmosphere, with the Thing That Was snugly protected inside. The Thing That Was would have smiled smugly if it could. It had survived the pull of the great Hot Body – it had survived the desperate search for Living Bodies that carried the Light – it had survived the aggressive little Hot Bodies that had tried to destroy it – it had outwitted them all! Now it would just wait, and rest while it waited.

* * *

"It's gone Brigadier," Sergeant Benton said flatly. Everyone looked at the blank radar screens. "No sign of it left. It must have burnt up in the atmosphere."

"That must be the end of it," Jo said sadly. "It must have died."

The Brigadier looked sternly at the Doctor, his eyes questioning under his dark brows.

The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. "I rather doubt that it's died, Jo. Its whole pattern of behaviour shows intelligence and planning. It would not have guided itself here unless it had some method of preserving itself. Its vehicle may be gone, but it survived. I'm sure of it."

"And it's here with us," the Brigadier said darkly.

* * *

Cynthia was getting bored now. The brothers seemed to be having trouble finding her. Maybe her hiding place had been just a little _too_ good?

She was getting hungry and thirsty too. And lonely. And uncomfortable in the branches of this silly tree. Maybe it was time to go down…

Abruptly she heard a whistling noise above her. It was loud – so loud that she felt her little body shaken by the vibrations in the branches. Looking up, she was startled to see something the like of which she had never seen before – a brilliant white ball of light hurtling to earth, leaving a long fiery tail behind it. It drew closer and closer, and it was so bright – as bright as the sun – that she had to screw up her eyes to protect them. A brilliant green and ghostly afterimage of the thing remained behind her closed eyelids. She was very scared, and clutched the branches of the friendly tree.

And then there was an ear-splitting crash, like thunder right next to her. She screamed, and almost fell out of the tree as it shook wildly. She was deafened – first by the sound of the explosion, and then by the sounds of hundreds of startled birds as they rose from all the neighbouring trees. She was dimly aware of Nichu and Jim's voices calling frantically. "Cynthia! Cynthia!"

She opened her eyes and was astonished by what she saw. From her high perch she could see, about half a dozen trees away, a little crater in the ground. Some bushes nearby were slowly smouldering in dying flame, and a few wisps of smoke were curling into the sky.

She blinked and looked again. What was in the middle of the crater? It looked like a hollow egg, just a bit bigger than a football, all broken into pieces. It was a funny looking thing – the outside bits of it were glowing red-hot, but the inside of it looked cool.

Suddenly, she was no longer afraid. The scary noise was gone, everything was calm and quiet and normal again. Her natural sense of adventure was stirred. She had to find out what this strange thing was!

Without losing a minute of time she scrambled down from the branches and, ignoring the calls of Jim and Nichu, headed off in the direction of the strange, crashed object.


	3. Chapter 3

_Note to Reviewers:_

_Hi, and thank you to Kyer and Nighthowler who wrote such helpful and encouraging reviews. Specifically, I'd love to thank Nighthowler for all the beautiful, lavish and heartwarming praise (I can't tell you how happy it makes me!), and Kyer for the thoughtful analysis that keeps me on track! _

_In response to the issues Kyer raised: I understand your apprehension of my use of the word "tools" in Chap 2. It was a tricky decision on my part to include that. I hope some understanding of that will become clear in time. You've made some good speculations as to the nature of the Thing and the Light – I won't comment on how accurate or inaccurate they are, but just let the story unfold. Which I sense is what you want anyway :-)__. And this chapter here, I suspect, will bring more clues to light. I will say, however, that the reason why the Thing felt the Light in certain regions of the Earth and not in others, was that the Light was less common in areas ravaged by war or poverty, and was irrespective of religious or cultural values._

_It makes me happy to see that someone took the time to investigate my spiritual beliefs. I'd just like to mention that it's not my intention, in writing this story, to weave a specific religious message, however dear to my heart it may be. In particular, throughout the Doctor Who mythos, as far as I can recall, we're never really made aware of what the Doctor's beliefs in God and spirituality are (although spiritual elements do emerge from time to time, like in "Planet of the Spiders") and I like to leave it that way :-)__. _

_I am, however, in the habit of allowing my personal beliefs and world views to influence my writing. You can see that quite vividly, I think, in my short _Animorphs_ fic that I wrote three years ago, and which you can access on this site._

_The question about Torchwood was a very good one! I tend to agree with your ideas about 1970's Torchwood and UNIT. I think it's open to speculation just to what extent UNIT and the Brigadier might have been aware of Torchwood's existence, if at all. You'll have to forgive me, but I'm going to refrain from commenting on whether or not Torchwood will appear in this story :-)__._

_I'm not sure when I'll have the next chapter ready. I'm suffering from some degree of writer's block at the moment – it's not that I don't have a plot – but more a problem of getting certain pieces of the plot to fit together neatly. I have many options, and I was to choose the one that feels right! In the meantime, I apologise if the story is a bit slow-paced as yet – hopefully that will change soon!_

_OK, enough talk – on with Joy Hunter! :-)__._

_Love And Peace,_

_Shoebox_

**Doctor Who and the Joy Hunter**

**Chapter 3**

Cynthia was eager to find the strange thing that had crashed. She picked her way through the undergrowth. Where had it landed exactly? It was hard to tell, now that she was under the trees again and lacked the vision she'd enjoyed from up above.

She was getting very close to the place. But now she slowed. She started to notice just how quiet the place had become. No birds sang. And there was an awful lot of burnt and blackened vegetation in the area. She could hear the faint crackle of flames, and the air was heavy with the smell of smoke.

She froze. Right in front of her, two glassy eyes stared at her. Dead eyes. They were the eyes of a fox, dead and singed, only the head seemingly untouched by the fire. For a moment she stood, transfixed as if by an apparition from some dark dream. All at once, she didn't want to be here any more. She wanted to be with Jim and Nichu again. Why had she been so silly as to run from them?

She turned and started to run back. But she tripped. She squealed as she fell – frightened. Sharp twigs on the ground cut her hands and knees. She had tripped over a root. She sat up, grumbling to herself and brushing dirt off her smarting hands. She looked at the root that had tripped her.

He eyes went wide. The root was _alive_! Across its surface there crawled a glowing living picture that she couldn't describe. Beautiful lacy patterns swam in gold over the rough surface.

Nichu and Jim's dad had taken all three of them once to a special show in Winchester – an exhibition of new technology, and there she had seen pictures made by lasers. Those pictures had fascinated her, and what she saw on the tree root now reminded her of that. Except that this was real, not just a picture made of light. It was so much more detailed and beautiful, and it was _real_. Somehow, it just looked so real. As if it were a living thing that crawled over the root.

The pictures were golden, and kept changing, looking in one instant like a spiderweb, in another like waves on the sea, in another like stars. Gingerly, she held out her hand. A faint warmth was emitted from it. Cynthia giggled. She wasn't afraid any more. She loved this thing; was fascinated by it; and she was glad she'd come after all.

_The Thing That Was was so excited now. A Living Body was very, very close! It had succeeded in its quest to find the right spot on this Cold Body! It had sensed the Living Body approaching, but it had not detected The Light. So, experimentally, it had decided to reveal itself to the Living Body. It knew that, somehow, the Living Bodies reacted to certain stimuli. They were strange objects, unlike any other objects in the Universe – completely unpredictable. It allowed its particles to emit electromagnetic rays across the whole spectrum of wavelengths. Perhaps the little nearby Living Body would respond to a particular wavelength. And to its delight, with its Other Sense, it had felt The Light flow through the Living Body. The Thing That Was felt a delicate wonder in all its particles. It knew nothing about the Living Bodies, except that they could be vessels to carry the Light, which was its sustenance. With great patience, it curbed its excitement – its feeling of wonder. It must treat this Living Body gently and not damage it. It was a precious thing that it must protect. Its own survival depended on it. But first it had to somehow learn about it. So it must be cautious – so very, very cautious._

Cynthia knew she must be cautious. This strange thing looked very fragile and delicate. As if the slightest breath might blow it off the surface of the root, and then it would disappear into the air, to be lost forever. She didn't want that. She didn't want to hurt it. She moved her hand towards it and back again, noting how the feeling of warmth changed. To her surprise and delight, the strange thing responded. As she moved her hand back from the golden pattern on the bark of the tree, the intensity of its heat changed. The pattern grew brighter and hotter the closer she moved her hand. She laughed again. She reached out her finger and touched it.

_The Thing That Was felt physical contact. Still keeping its expanding sense of wonder in patient check, it slowly explored. It spread its particles over the surface of the Living Body, tasting it with the chemical sensors on the hundreds of appendages that each of its particles possessed. It encountered millions of tiny structures, like its own particles, but much bigger, and chemically different, with a metabolism as complex, yet radically divergent from its own. And these particles were locked together, not free-roaming in space like its own. These particles were blind and sluggish. They were of a non-variable shape, wrapped in membranes that locked their inner workings away form the world – clumsy bags of organic material. The Thing That Was carefully pierced a small number of these membranes with its own particles, which it sent inside and examined the inner workings of the strange tiny bags of fluid, millions of which made up the Living Body. In this tiny supermolecule-rich sea substructures floated; the individual functions of which it could only guess. It sensed a bewilderingly intricate system of chemical processes going on around it – carbohydrate and oxygen were absorbed into some of the substructures, where they were linked to form an energy-rich molecule that was distributed to all the other structures. The Thing That Was sent its explorer particles into the centre of this little building-block of the Living Body, into the spherical nucleus. There it found vast, long macromolecules – majestic chains wrapped around each other in twin helixes containing a phenomenal wealth of information coded in its sequence of chemical bonds. The Thing That Was absorbed terabytes of data into its living computer and ran deep analyses._

Cynthia watched as the lovely patterns slowly rippled and danced over her hand. She held that hand up in front of her; the green of the woodland contrasting with the new, golden glow of her fingers. She could feel the Strange Thing on them – warm, tickly and pleasant. Suddenly, she giggled as she felt a warm river of her New Friend run up her arm. She felt it run in distributaries all over her body, and all at once she felt like an angel wrapped in light. She laughed out loud. She breathed it in and smelt it, and it smelt like sweet flowers.

_The Thing That was felt its particles sucked into an airway that led deep inside the Living Body. They entered a great network of air channels that became ever narrower and narrower; their numbers increasing by orders of magnitude as they subdivided, until they ended in little expanding gas sacs lined with miniature channels carrying a mysterious thick liquid. The Thing That Was sent its particles across the membranous boundary and into the liquid._

_The Thing That was was now coursing through the arteries of the Living Body, feeling its pulse as it was hurtled along. Its own particles clung to the round, mobile particles that had absorbed oxygen from the gas sacs. These cells were not locked and static like those that formed the skin that surrounded the Living Body. No – these were units that lived in every part of the Living Body – traveling at speed through all its regions, like__ travellers__ in fast vehicles that carried them through many strange lands. The Thing That Was was now a passenger that rode piggyback on the particles that carried oxygen and fuel to every part of the Living Body. It felt itself swept into the chambers of the great living pump in the centre of the Living Body, and then they hurtled on through more and more channels, separated from each other as they sped through a great fractal network of these channels. Its particles permeated every part of the Living Body - the large-scale structures – the mechanisms for getting the substances into its body that were needed for its metabolism – and the structures for getting rid of the waste products._

_And it found the Living Body's control centre – where everything from the senses was relayed, and from which instructions were sent to the motor organs. Millions of particles of a special kind, all locked together in silence and stillness, and yet in complete mastery of all the rest of the Living Body – the controlling entity of this amazing, wonderful machine. The place where The Light originated! The Thing That Was was awed. It was like a creature that had been blind and now could see for the first time! It felt its awareness of the universe expanding exponentially – running out of control! Too much!_

Cynthia staggered. She reached out to the tree trunk to stop herself from falling. She had been spinning round and round like a very little girl – completely lost and giddy in delight! What was wrong with her? All at once she was very tired. And she was a little scared. "Jim!" she cried. "Nichu! I'm here! I'm here!"

_The Thing That was was suddenly frightened. The Light has abruptly vanished! WHY?? in a panic it searched for the Light, and in its fright it became completely disoriented, trapped inside this strange body – lost in this cathedral of still, silent cells that flashed a bewildering, chaotic complex of electronic signals to each other It felt claustrophobic – it wanted to get out – to find The Light somewhere else._

Cynthia felt very scared. It seemed like there was something in her head that was making her more scared than she should really be. "JIM!! NICHU!!" she wailed.

Jim and Nichu came bounding through the wood. They made straight for Cynthia. Jim ran to her and took her in his arms. "It's OK!" he muttered. "You're safe. It's OK. Oh Cynthia, you gave us such a fright!"

_The Thing That was steadied itself; its reason returning. The Light was slowly returning. It reprimanded itself, knowing it had allowed its own excitement to get the better of it. It must not let such a thing happen again. It had to respect this little Living Body. If it let it continue in its natural stat, then it would provide the safest environment for the Thing That Was. So it would just leave the Living Body alone for a while. It would stay inside it, but it would rest. For it needed rest after that great journey!_

"Come on!" Nichu urged. "Your mum is going to kill us if we don't get back soon!"

Cynthia sighed, wiped away tears, and followed the boys. She didn't say anything about her discovery. Her wonderful discovery!

* * *

In UNIT HQ, the Doctor and Jo watched as Benton carefully triangulated the position of the mysterious object's entry on a large map of the British Isles. "It has to be somewhere in this region – in the South Downs," he said.

"Make enquiries," the Brigadier ordered. "Call the local emergency services – police, fire brigades. Contact the local media too. Call _anyone_ who might know anything! If that thing's still alive and among us, I want to know where it is!"

"Sir," Captain Yates said, "there are reports of a meteor coming to earth near the village of Chapel Hill in that area."

"Right!" the Brigadier snapped, getting to his feet. "Contact the local police – make sure _no-one_ approaches the site! No-one is to go anywhere near it until we get there!" He grabbed his radio mike. "All units – we are executing Operation 14. Report to Captain Yates."

"What's happening?" the Doctor asked suddenly.

"What's happening is that we're going there, and we're going to take charge of the situation, Doctor. We're of no use sitting here twiddling our thumbs! All of us are moving out to where the action is!"

Almost before he'd finished speaking there was the growl of several engines outside. Jo looked out and saw a convoy of vehicles – trucks, jeeps and Land Rovers, all bearing the UNIT logo, being assembled.

"Brigadier," the Doctor said, "can I take the TARDIS along?"

The Brigadier raised an eyebrow. "Why on Earth would you want to do that? We all know you can't make the thing work!"

"Brigadier, the TARDIS is a living thing. She has many uses."

The Brigadier didn't argue any more. "Sergeant Benton, ensure that the Doctor's TARDIS is safely transported to Chapel Hill!"

* * *

Jim and Nichu led Cynthia back towards home.

"You know, Jim," Nichu grumbled, "we're going to catch it! We were supposed to be looking after her!"

"Don't worry," Jim muttered. "Just take it slowly Cin."

"I'm all right, really!" Cynthia said as they walked. "Do we have to go home now? I want to play more with you both!"

"It's getting late now," Nichu said.

"Oh all right," Cynthia pouted.

They reached home. Cynthia's mother came rushing out. "Where have you all been?" she demanded. "I was terrified – just about to go searching. Didn't you hear that great bang?"

All three nodded. They had not only heard it, but _seen_ it too.

"Cynthia, you've cut yourself!"

"It's not much," Cynthia murmoured.

"What do you mean it's not much? It could get infected! Then you'll get really sick! Go inside and wash your hands and knees right away!"

Cynthia hung her head and trudged inside.

_Why was the Light fading again? The Thing That Was felt so exasperated – it truly hated the way everything about the Living Bodies and The Light was such a mystery. It could find out how their bodies physically worked with ease. By why they did certain things was something else altogether. Still, it knew the Light would return, so it just had to exercise patience._

"There's some Government people coming…" Cynthia could hear her mother saying, afer she'd gone to wash herself in the kitchen. She ran the tap, but tiptoed back to the door, staying just out of sight, so she could hear what her mother was saying. "…don't know why, but it must be serious! Jim and Nichu, your dad got a call from them – he's to meet with them tonight. So you'd better look after your mum while he's away!"

Neither of the two boys felt that Cynthia's mother's attitude particularly recognized the certain degree of maturity they'd acquired by now. But they didn't say anything. "Bye Cin," they called, and together they headed for next door.

Cynthia sprinted back to the sink just before her mother came in. "You really have to be more careful!"

"I know, Mummy," Cynthia muttered.

She heard her mother sigh. "I love you darling, and I want you to stay safe!"

"I know Mummy," Cynthia groaned.

Her mother kissed her. "Tea is nearly ready now."

* * *

After tea, Cynthia sat with her mother for a while watching _Crossroads_. Just as the credits started to move across the screen, perpendicular to each other after the fashion that was characteristic of that particular soap opera, there came the familiar sound of her father's car pulling to a stop outside. She got up to hug him as he entered the room. "I'm so glad I managed to get back," he said as he threw himself down in a chair after kissing his wife. He worked as an accountant in Winchester. "I heard on the car radio as I was on my way back that the Army is going to cordon off the whole village! Confine the lot of us like a hutch of rabbits! Really! Something about some foreign bomb or something having come down and not exploded. Pretty funny excuse if you ask me – I mean, it's not as if there's a war on! The thing's probably just some bit of a Concorde that fell off while it was flying above us – one of its nuts or bolts or something - and the Government's too embarrassed to admit it!"

Cynthia was getting tired, so she was rather glad when her mother told her to go and get ready for bed.

* * *

Jo watched in amusement as a gang of six burly UNIT soldiers gingerly tipped the inoperable TARDIS on its side, directed by a calm and ever cheerful Sergeant Benton, despite the Doctor's continuous and nervous pleadings for caution. "Easy, easy. PLEASE DON'T DROP MY TARDIS!!"

Jo smiled. She knew how vast the Time Lord vessel was, once one stepped inside the innocuous-looking blue box. So vast that it would be impossible for the six men to move it alone. She could only conclude that the machine, besides being "dimensionally transcendental" – that was, bigger inside than out, was also "massively transcendental" – or lighter on the outside than in! She considered questioning the Doctor on this point for a moment, if only to take his mind off the stressful sight in front of him. She decided against it. She rather suspected that the Doctor's explanation would be quite long – and quite confusingly complicated.

"That's it chaps. Now _heave_!" Benton said happily. "Easy does it – we don't want to frighten the Doctor by dropping it now, do we?" He winked at Jo.

* * *

The soldiers lashed the TARDIS with ropes to the back of the jeep that was a part of the assembled convoy of UNIT vehicles – jeeps, trucks, Land Rovers. Captain Mike Yates supervised as troops jogged up, bearing provisions to be loaded on. The supplies stored ranged from simple food and water rations to medical supplies, radio equipment, semi-automatic weapons and ammunition. A science vehicle was laden with Geiger-counters, dosimeters, a bulky 1970s thermal-imaging camera, chemical, radiation and bio-hazard suits. The Brigadier had also commanded the bus-sized "Mobile HQ" to be brought on the journey.

As the last knot was tightened that secured the TARDIS on the back of the truck, Jo thought how ironic it was that the machine that was supposed to be capable of traveling anywhere in the Universe under its own power had to be heaved by muscle-power onto the back of a truck to be transported.

Seeing the TARDIS safely prepared for the journey, the Doctor turned to face Jo. He was wearing his black traveling cape with red lining. His eyes were sparkling in the late afternoon sun. "Well Jo, let's go and get Bessie!"

Jo grinned, and the two of them piled into the lovely old yellow roadster of the Doctor's. She knew that, though the Doctor's car looked like an antique, the renegade Time Lord had augmented it with futuristic technology that enabled it to travel at many times the speed of any of the UNIT vehicles assembled around them. Which could make her quite nervous to travel in Bessie. "Can we go a bit slowly today please Doctor?" she begged.

The Doctor chuckled as he took the wheel and turned the ignition key. "Don't worry Jo. We'll be patient, and let all these antiques keep up with us!" He waved his hand at the assortment of state-of-the-art military vehicles around them.

"All right – everyone on the move!" the Brigadier hollered from his seat in a Land Rover driven by Benton. One by one each truck or car started to roll away. The golden light of the late sun glinted off the numerous representations of the UNIT emblem painted on bodywork. The Doctor maneuvered Bessie into a position directly behind that of the truck carrying the TARDIS. He thumbed a communications device he'd installed in Bessie's dashboard, which broadcasted on the wavelength of the Brigadier's handheld radio. "I say Brigadier," he said through the microphone, "do you know exactly what you plan on doing when we get there?"

"There's a man we have contact with – a local geologist. Indian fellow. He saw the object as it was coming down; has an idea of the spot where it crashed. Once we get to Chapel Hill we rendezvous with him. He can guide us to the place. After that…"

"After that, you ask the Doctor for help!" Jo laughed. The Doctor laughed with her. The Brigadier said nothing more. Jo stole a glimpse back at the receding shape of the stately UNIT headquarters that had come to feel like a home to her and the Doctor, as well as the Brigadier and all the UNIT personnel. Then she looked ahead again. It was a slow, quiet procession of vehicles, engines modestly rumbling in the still air as they carried their passengers away from home towards whatever unknown adventure lay ahead of them.

* * *

Cynthia had just finished brushing her teeth. She looked at her face and the mirror and at her hands – pink from the warm water. There was no sign of any of the strange patterns that had danced over them earlier that day. She felt a bit sad about that. Had it all just been some kind of a dream?

She went to her bedroom. She sat on the bed and looked around. It was the same familiar room. On her bed were all the soft toys her mother had made for her – a pink elephant, an owl, and, of course, Teddy. There were even characters from Sesame Street – Ernie and Bert, and Oscar. They were old and worn now, but she still loved them. A couple of colourful paper wrappers from Womble chocolate bars lay littered about.

Her bookcase held her favourite volumes – the _Chronicles of Narnia_ and _The Hobbit_. There were also some Famous Five and Secret Seven novels, although she didn't like those nearly as much. And there were also the books she'd had when she was a bit younger, and which she still looked at sometimes. She had loved the Rupert Bear books. Rupert was mystical – he lived a kind of dreamworld of elves, friendly dragons, and magical Chinese princesses. And when she looked out at the woodland from her bedroom window, she could fantasise that it was really Rupert's "Nutwood" she was gazing at – a place filled with talking animals and magical creatures.

She knelt on the bed now, putting her hands on the windowsill. The amber light from the setting sun glinted on the white painted body of a nearby car. Looking out beyond her parents' property, off into the woods, as far as she could see, she could just make out the tree where she had found the Strange Thing – its branches stirring almost imperceptibly in the slight breeze. Did she notice a little sparkle of gold in it?

Cynthia knelt there for almost an hour, staring at the tree as the colour of the sky slowly deepened to a dark, cobalt blue. The owner of the car came, got in it and drove off. Cynthia yawned and crawled into bed. She hugged Teddy and buried herself, head and all, with him under the blankets.

She held her hands in front of her in the dark. There it was – only for a moment – a wisp of a wonderfully complex golden pattern flowing and changing like water across her fingers. She smiled in her soft warm cave. "So you are real," she whispered. "You weren't a dream."

_The Thing That was felt the Light surround it. It was content. But still so tired after its long, traumatic journey across the Void. Right now, however, it was where it needed to be. In the near future it would explore more and experiment more. But now it would rest._

* * *

With the coming of spring in the British Isles, the daylight hours were lengthening, Even after the sun had set, there persisted the long twilight that characterizes such latitudes. As the UNIT convoy sped on silently, avoiding the motorway and instead going by the country by-roads, the constellations slowly pricked into the sky. The unmistakable three stars of Orion's belt hung above, shouldered by the amber-orange glow of Betelgeuse and the bright white of Rigel, while Sirius blazed in cold brilliance. The Doctor gazed at those stars; a distant look in his eyes. A forcefield dome over Bessie protected him and Jo from the cold, while an onboard computer guided her, without the need of the Doctor having to so much as touch the steering wheel.

"What are you thinking, Doctor?" Jo asked gently. She suspected he was thinking of his lost freedom among the stars and across Time.

The Doctor looked at her. His eyes which had seemed so bright before now had a tired look. "I was thinking about our mysterious visitor, Jo." He picked up the collection of black and white photos that lay on his lap. They were the same ones the Brigadier had shown them hours before. "I'm thinking about what its origins could be. And there are some disturbing theories which come to my mind now."

"Why?" Jo asked softly. The Doctor's face and helmet of grey locks shone dimly red in the sheen from the taillights of the truck in front of Bessie; the truck which held the TARDIS – a tall, dark shape in the gathering dark.

"Look at these pictures. See the changing coordinates that are printed here. They show two things of significance. One is that the object was moving at considerable speed when it was first detected – faster than a normal comet, but while it was still on its original course, before it diverted itself to come here. Now Jo, we know it was moving towards the inner Solar System already, captured by the Sun's gravity. Comets travel in highly eccentric orbits – great ellipses with the Sun at one of the foci – near one end of the oval. That is where they move the fastest – when the approach the Sun, or are just leaving it. The longer the ellipse, the faster they travel when they are near the Sun – approaching it or departing it. But there comes a velocity that is a kind of threshold – an object traveling at such speed will mean that although the Sun's gravity will slow it on its outward journey, it will never be strong enough to make it return. The curve of its orbit will not be an ellipse, but a hyperbola - an open-ended orbit which will take it beyond the Solar System forever.

"But the converse is true as well. The curve of the hyperbola extends to infinity in _both_ directions. If an object is traveling at such speed that the Sun cannot catch it and trap it in a closed orbit, then it must have come from outside the Solar System to begin with. It will be a once-only visitor, not a periodically visiting friend like Halley's discovery. It will have come from outside.

"This is what makes the nature of our visitor the most disturbing – made especially so by the second thing that these coordinates reveal. We see that the path of its movement roughly corresponds to the ecliptic plane – that is, it's roughly traveling in the same plane that the planets travel in as they orbit the Sun. This is probably coincidental. But the fact is that the planetary plane of your Solar System is inclined at what approaches a right angle to the _galactic_ plane. The direction of our friend's approach means it could not have been traveling within the plane of the galaxy before it came here. Which tells us a profound thing about its origins. It has probably originated not only outside of the Solar System, but outside of the Mutter's Spiral itself!"

"The _what_ Spiral?" Jo asked. She was only just managing to keep up with the Doctor's explanation.

"This, Jo," the Doctor said, sweeping his hand across the glittering dome of constellations above their head. "Your galaxy, that you call the Milky Way, but which most other spacefaring races, including the Time Lords, know as the Mutter's Spiral."

"Why is that disturbing?"

The Doctor sighed. "Think Jo. Our visitor has been traveling through a very great void – the space between galaxies! Influenced, for the most part, only by the normal gravity of stars like the Sun. Which is a _slow_ way to travel! This being which has come to Earth is probably immensely old – far older than we can conceive, as it must have been traveling through that intergalactic void for _thousands of millions of years_! And in that void it's about as close to absolute zero temperature as you can get! All the chemical processes of life as we know it cease – frozen in time.

"I don't know if you know, Jo, but there are organisations in this little world of yours – new groups just starting to form, which are interested in preserving human beings at supercold temperatures on their request, immediately after their legal death, yet not before the functional death of their brains – an attempt at immortality – something, by the way, which the Time Lords rejected long ago – the science that enables us to change our bodies – to regenerate into new appearances and personalities – could have been used to make us immortal, except that we recognized immortality for what it really is – a curse, not a blessing. The Cybermen are one example of what happened to a race who attempted to attain immortality through technological means. But if the creature which concerns us now is a chemical-based life form – which I suspect it is from what we've seen of it, though radically different from anything we know – then it must have been in a cryostatic sleep during the aeons it's spent travelling. And now it's awake, stirred to life in your Solar System by the warmth of the Sun, waking up on the other side of the Universe, after thousands of millions of years. Don't you see, Jo? It must be like a child! Enormously old, yet like a child! It knows nothing about our Universe – except maybe the physical laws. It knows nothing about the creatures who inhabit it now, like you and I. Nothing at all about who we are, or why where are here."

He rubbed his eyes. "And one other thing. How could it power that strange space vessel of it's? We know that it used its own heat to melt ice and make a vapour jet to push the rock. As simple as that. But – the _power_ required to do that! Thousands and thousands of kilowatts! It's conceivable that enough chemical _energy_ was locked up in the body of that asteroid. But – the rate of energy consumption – the _power_ - would have been phenomenal – staggering! No form of life I know of is capable of it. No creature on Earth or on any planet I've visited has a metabolism fast and furious enough to vapourise tons of ice around it in mere seconds – powerful enough to act as a rocket motor! How could it do it?" He paused. "What if the particles it's made of entered a living body? A human being? What could it do that person, with power like that?"

The Doctor shook his head and pressed his fingertips on his temples. "A phenomenally ancient being – of enormous power – with the mind of a child."

Over the communications link in Bessie's dashboard came the brusque, yet friendly voice of the Brigadier. "Greyhound Leader to – er – to the Doctor's old yellow crock. Doctor? Miss Grant? How are you?"

"Fine thank you, Brigadier," Jo sighed.

"Good," the veteran soldier replied. "Hang in there, we're almost at our destination. Greyhound out."


End file.
